Sunbeam

(100 word flash fiction)

Family gone, career over, there was nothing to live for.

And so, she stood at the bridge, the portal between this life and the next. Above her, dark clouds rolled. The sky was already in mourning.

The office farewell gift, a brooch the colour of sunrise, felt heavy in her hand. As though pinning her down, inexorably, to the fabric of life.

She felt a tug on her sleeve. A teenage girl in tatters. A baby on her hip. Begging.

Inside her heart, gears shifted and moved. A sunbeam shot through the clouds.

“Would you like a meal? A home?”

~~~

Friday Fictioneers flash fiction for the photo prompt below -

PHOTO PROMPT © The Reclining Gentleman

The power of awe - tanka

What's a poem but

the shell around the heart being

split open by awe

beauty comes out of hiding

and love does a little dance

~~~

Sensuous Sundays - Chocolate

Chocolate – haiku

silken smooth melting

taste buds in sweet drunken swoon

dark ambrosia

~~~

The thief

(100 word flash fiction)

He pushed open the rusty gate and walked calmly to the crumbling house.

He planned to overpower her when she opened the door, force her to open the safe and decamp with the loot.

But, the door was open. She was lying on the floor. Her breaths long and laboured. Each one like it was the last.

Should he run, or call for help?

‘Who are you?” asked the emergency call operator.

The woman in an old photo on the wall looked just like the one in a photo he had carried in his wallet for 20 years.

“Her son.”

~~~

For Friday Fictioneers photo prompt below -

photo prompt © David Stewart

Writing

Glenn Colquhoun GP and poet on 'How do writing and medicine fit together?'


"Mainly they complement each other. Sometimes a poem is about trying to touch your hand as lightly as possible on the fabric of the universe. Medicine is the same."

Amen to that!

An Old Woman

by Arun Kolatkar

An old woman grabs
hold of your sleeve
and tags along.

She wants a fifty paise coin.
She says she will take you
to the horseshoe shrine.

You’ve seen it already.
She hobbles along anyway
and tightens her grip on your shirt.

She won’t let you go.
You know how old women are.
They stick to you like a burr.

You turn around and face her
with an air of finality.
You want to end the farce.

When you hear her say,
‘What else can an old woman do
on hills as wretched as these?’

You look right at the sky.
Clear through the bullet holes
she has for her eyes.

And as you look on
the cracks that begin around her eyes
spread beyond her skin.

And the hills crack.
And the temples crack.
And the sky falls

with a plateglass clatter
around the shatter proof crone
who stands alone.

And you are reduced
to so much small change
in her hand.

~~~

Sensuous Sundays - Shower

Shower - haiku

the shower hisses
water kisses turn into
a liquid embrace

~~~

Dawn breaking

She looked at herself in the mirror
and shimmied a little, smiling at her
wan face, saying, “you look lovely!”
As though in apology to her own
reflection that didn’t smile back.
But replied in her head, “you liar!”
Her heart dropped into her belly,
that sea of tremulousness. “I love you,”
she cried in desperate defiance.

“You sentimental fool!” Old, hazy
voices rose from forgotten graves.
“You are not real.” She railed at
their fuzzy persistence. “Who do
you think you are?” Old shame
surfaced like dirty foam. “You’re
lies I believed for far too long.”
“Don’t delude yourself.” “I am
truth. I am light. I am pure love.”

She leaned toward her reflection
blurred through the tears, kissed
it. Her lover, her eternal friend.
It glowed and grew. It smiled back
through the misty glass. The sun
rose from the sea of grey, lifted
her heart, gave it wings. Light
pulsated through her veins, “Hello
Sunshine!” Her eyes twinkled back.

~~~

dVerse Poets Pub hosted by Victoria this week asks us to write a poem in conversation style.

In continuum

(100 word flash fiction)

She ran her finger down the book’s spine.  It was coarse and unyielding like bark.

‘This was once a tree.’ She thought, bemused. ‘Its cells then rearranged into a different form to serve a different purpose.’

She looked around the room lined with books in shelves. She was in a jungle here. Except, it was not sap that was flowing but rivers of stories.

‘A house it could have been, sheltering people. Or a boat, gliding over the endless rivers. Living, serving, even after death.’

She pulled the form towards her and signed it, donating all her organs after death.

~~~

It’s that day of the week again when I check out the Friday Fictioneers page hosted by the lovely Rochelle and get a high by writing a short story based on the photo prompt which this week is –

PHOTO PROMPT – © Jennifer Pendergast

Sensuous Sundays - A memory

A memory stirs. Honey
light and liquid days, in veins
sunshine wine spilling on to
pages as poems.


Dodoitsu  form (7-7-7-5 syllable structure)

The time to leave

(100 word flash fiction)

She gazed up from the asphalt at the open window from which she had just been thrown, desperately willing his face not to appear.

She couldn’t move. A chill was moving up from her legs. Her vision was starting to fade as blood seeped into her eyes.

She heard footsteps. Furtive ones. Then, his voice in her ear, a menacing whisper, “You don’t get to decide when to leave. I do.”

His smell, once loved, now loathed, filled her nostrils, gushed into her lungs sucking the breath out of her.

That’s when she remembered the gun strapped to her waist.

~~~

A bit too graphic and literal but my muse won’t give me anything else today.

Friday Fictioneers flash fiction for the photo prompt -



Copyright Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

What does the watchman see?

Watcher – haiku

a coiled tense spring
the cat watches its victim
eat its last meal

~~~

Watchman – haiku

you watch over me
like a lighthouse, always there
forever shining

~~~

Watchkeeper – tanka

third watch of the night
the clock stops still in mid gong
Death has come calling

“your time is up” gaily says
that relentless watch keeper

~~~

For DVerse Poets prompt What does the watchman see?

Flower fall - tanka

curt, sharp-edged light
fells blooms from trees gathering
in an orphaned arc

soughing into pregnant grass
rosy tales of birth and death

~~~

For Dverse Poets Modifiers- Use modifiers in wild and whacky ways :)

Canvas of failure - haiku

Over at the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads the challenge is to do ekphrastic poetry. Ekphrasis comes from Greek and means to use a description of art (the poem) as a rhetorical or imaginative description. With just a single piece of art, the challenge is to find a poem that does notjust describe the painting, but how it speaks to me, what stories I find in it.

Artist in his Studio by Rembrandt

Tongue-in-cheek haiku

Ugh! Did I paint that?

What was I thinking? Oh hell!

There goes my contract.

~~~

Plain old haiku

Decay seeped from walls

deep into his heart spaces

A desert canvas

~~~

Sensuous Sundays - Moon Paeans

did you know

that moonlight writes poems

on pages of grass

tales of anguish

paeans to the mundane

arias of joy

now you know why

the dawn finds the blades of grass

drenched in tears

~~~

Stark Reality

(100 word flash fiction)

She eased into the immersive reality machine and touched the power button. Excited and impatient to try out a new software. Utterly untried. Called Stark Reality.

The smell hit her first. Harsh, acrid, almost forgotten. The smell of burning.

Explosions rent the air. Soldiers passed in jeeps shooting randomly.  She turned to flee, tripped and fell.

A deafening thunderclap lifted her off the ground and threw her against a wall. Pain lightning streaked through her body. She could barely see. She tried to feel her face. But where were her hands?

How was she going to reach the power button?

~~~

I wrote this story and then spent a considerable amount of time thinking about the nature of reality. It seems our bodies are virtual reality machines with our sense organs giving us the input. Our brain is the computer and our mind the software. But all of this is controlled by the Ghost In The Machine who decides when to power on and off (dramatically called birth and death). After powering off, the GITM might find another VR machine and power on again. Who knows? The GITM does this for no other reason than to have an immersive experience, much like we would go on a roller coaster ride :) However, we tend to identify with the machine, the computer, the software, the whole package or even software generated concepts like gender, race, nationality, all the while forgetting that we are none of these. We are here just for the ride :D Well, not my thoughts exactly. The mystics have been saying this for centuries :)

It’s that time of the week, when one’s mind itches to see the photo prompt that Rochelle faithfully puts up for the eclectic group called Friday Fictioneers. Today’s story is for the prompt below –

Photo copyright - Claire Fuller

Views from the plane

On a flight from Christchurch to Wellington, I got to shoot the magnificent Southern Alps and also managed to get bit of Wellington.

Just out of Christchurch

Cook Strait, blue and gleaming in the sun

Wellington, in sight

Sensuous Sundays - Ancient embrace - haiga

Mundane Mondays - Teatime

~ Celebrating the mundane ~

Teatime – haiku

gingery spiced tea

biscuit dipping, hot slurping

the sun in my eyes

~~~

Sensuous Sundays - Love notes

(click on photo to see larger version)

Beautiful drone photos

10 beautiful drone photos on 500px

(8 and 9 are my personal favs)

The revenge of the moths

(100 word flash fiction)

“Come on, we’ve come this far, let’s not falter. We’ve got to find our friend.”

“But, as far as we have found out, these strange arched eating places, they only serve cow, pig, fish and fowl. We won’t find him here.”

“A ‘lil bird told me this one’s different. They serve wildlife meat to only some people. We’ve got to get in and find out.”

“But, what are we going to do if we find they serve wild lion meat?”

“We will poison their food, so that no one eats here anymore. And do the same to all the others.”

~~~

Cecil’s death still haunts me. I need catharsis, I guess.

A bitter tale written for the lovely Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers for the photo prompt below –

 

Photo © Madison Woods

Too young to wed - 2

After I had written Too young to wed and was agonising about all the child brides and how helpless I felt, it occurred to me that there was another side to the story - the husband's side. I had to write another story just to look at things from his side too. I confess, I couldn't see very clearly (being female and not being from that culture).

THE SAVOUR

(110 word flash fiction)

Khalid flops to his side. Lovemaking with Saida is always dissatisfying. Firstly, she doesn’t move. Then, she is so small. Guilt stabs at his heart. He shouldn’t have married someone so young.

But, her uncle had begged until he had relented. After all, he was saving her from possible rape and ruin. He had given her a ‘married woman‘ status. And now, the chance to be a mother.

Smug satisfaction wipes away the guilt. Saida gets up and leaves. ‘Ungrateful wretch! Crying all the time.’

Sleep clouds his brain as clouds obscure the moon just as the thought is forming that his child and wife could both go to school.

~~~

Too young to wed

(100 word flash fiction)

Saida’s husband has flopped to his side after heaving his 54-year old heavy, sweaty body on her 14-year one. Through her tears, she can see the moon outside the window emerge from behind clouds.

Fat-belly moon. Like her own growing belly. Wanderer of the skies. It reminds her of freedom. Of her short-lived school days.  Of her once fiery desire to be a teacher.

Yes! Fire could be her deliverer.

She tiptoes across the room to the kitchen. Thick, dark clouds are rapidly obscuring the moon. In the fading light, she finds the kerosene, douses herself and lights a match.

~~~

Can't say I wrote this story. I only paraphrased a real-life story (or bits from lots of them). Watch the full feature on this National Geographic Live feature called 'Too young to Wed" by Photographer Stephanie Sinclair and writer Cynthia Gorney. Heart-breaking stuff!

Flash fiction for Friday Fictioneers to the photo prompt below -

Like a pebble - tanka

Autumn drops a leaf

on sky-coloured still water

gold seeps into blue

blue seeps into me. I am

cloudless, skyless, limitless

~~~

(Image from - http://www.goodfon.su/wallpaper/autumn-maple-leaf-water-osen.html)

Written for the Carpe Diem prompt - Like a Pebble

Coming of the camellias

The first camellia of the season has bloomed ---

Snowed under

(100 word flash fiction)

Her eye sockets are filled with snow. She can feel it dripping into her empty cranium where once had pulsated red-hot rages and electric aliveness. Once. Long ago.

Sliding down her spine, past the throat that had sung arias and screamed with equal intensity. Once.

Through an empty ribcage where her heart had often wanted to burst its bars and explode. Once.

Past a vanished solar plexus that had blazed like a sun. Once.

It collects in her pelvis, where a tiny half-formed skeleton lies, surrounding it like amniotic fluid.

He had not known it was there. Her husband / murderer.

~~~

This time I wrote two stories to the Friday Fictioneers prompt below -

The Christmas present

(100 word flash fiction)

Santa has to walk. The Taliban have killed the reindeer. The elves have managed to escape. But, funding for the arms industry has made them redundant.

Mercifully, the kids nowadays only ask for iPhones.

He approaches the secluded house half covered in snow. In the dawn almost-light, he sees the boy outside the door only when he is up close.

“Merry Christmas, young man!”

He reaches into his bag, retrieves a slim case and holds it out to him.

The boy does not move. A sneer distorts his face.

“This is for babies. What I want is a real gun.” 

~~~

Story for Friday Fictioneers

Viewpoints

In all tests of character, when two viewpoints are pitted against each other, in the final analysis, the thing that will strike you the most is not who was right or wrong, strong or weak, wise or foolish... but who went to the greater length in considering the other's perspective.

- Mike Dooley

The other side of nightmare

(100 word flash fiction)

She has the same dream again. Tiled roofs. Walking under stately arches. Cycling through cobbled streets. Waves of happiness surge through her, rising in a crest of joy until it explodes in a burst of euphoria so great, it shakes her awake and sitting bolt upright in bed.

Only, there is no bed. Just a torn mat on a bare floor. Around her, sleeping bodies. Mice in the corners. Cold drafts seeping in through the refugee shelter’s broken windows.

Holes, where the city used to be. Where the bombs fell. The biggest hole inside her where home used to be.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Friday Fictioneers story to the photo prompt -

 

© Sandra Crook

Girl, gone

(100 word flash fiction)

She opened her eyes to blackness. No slivers of moonlight peeking through chinks in curtains. Gone were the digital clock numerals. Even the teddy with the glowing, neon eyes was eyeless.

She thought she should feel terror but where her body used to be, there was nothing.

So, she shut her eyes. Light poured down on her through a hole in the blackness. And something else, clumps of earth. A spade flashed in and out of view. She tried to shriek. No sound came. Her throat was full of mud.

She opened her eyes again. The nothingness was more bearable.


~~~~

Entry for Friday Fictioneers the amazing group shepherded by Rochelle. Photo prompt below –

PHOTO PROMPT © Stephen Baum

Views from my window

Winter is here and so is the ice on the mountain ranges. It's such a joy to look at them in all seasons, like an ever-changing kaleidoscope. Right now the reigning colour is white....

winter is here

I try hard to keep the cold 

out of heart spaces

then the rainbow peeks

like a playful child in mirth

chanting 'I see you' 

A morning moment

(100 word flash fiction)

She is standing by the stove when he enters the kitchen still half in the arms of sleep.

She turns towards him and motions towards the table. “How about a quickie?” Her smile is as delicious as chocolate on a warm tongue.

He isn’t sure when Morpheus flees. All he is delightfully aware of is that Aphrodite has engulfed them in her foamy, liquid arms.

He gives his best and when it is over, looks at her with pleasure. “What was that about?” He asks in wonder.

“Oh!” she says, nonchalantly rolling off the table. “The egg timer is broken.”

~~~

P.S. According to Hesiod‘s Theogony, Aphrodite was born when Cronus cut off Uranus‘s genitals and threw them into the sea, and she arose from the sea foam (aphros) interpreting the name as “risen from the foam”. (Source : Wikipedia)

Entry for Friday Fictioneers the awesome flash fiction blog run by Rochelle for the following photo prompt.

Luscious with light - haiku

Sagittarius moon
full, pregnant, luscious with light
new beginnings

The moon laughing steals
my sleep. I give in gladly
to grand thievery

Visions meld with
poems written by moonlight
on naked skin

imagine being
moon-soaked / dream-drenched / ethereal
nothingness

The moon does not know
it has entangled my soul
in webs of delight

I come undone
and then all of me is gone
only light is left

~~~

A pinprick of light - haiku

A pinprick of light
among the hills. A haven
or a dire warning?

~~~

Pinpricks of light
in the night sky. Divine souls
or indifferent stars?

~~~

Spurts of freedom – tanka

I wonder sometimes
if the blood rushing through veins
wishes to be free

to rise, to rain in glorious
red arches of liberty

~~~

For the photo prompt at Mindlovemisery's Menangerie -

Photo credit – Paulix8

Winter is here - haiga

(View of ice-clad Rimutaka from our window)

Tears of the Moon

(100-word flash fiction)


“These are tears of the moon.” Alice’s voice is tremulous.

Jenny snorts. The seven-year old cynic, who no longer believes in Santa.

“The moon is sad because dolphins are dying.”

Jenny stops in mid-snort when she notices the tears in Alice’s voice.

“And whales too. And … and polar bears.” Alice’s tears are as clear and glassy as the drops on the leaf.

Then, 10-year old Jenny with her ‘Save Alice’ campaign, trying desperately to save a dying Alice.

Now, at 16, firebrand and founder of the organisation ‘Tears of the Moon”, valiantly trying to prevent wanton killing of animals.

~~~~~~~~~

Second story submission for the Friday Fictioneers photo prompt below –

The sign

(100-word flash fiction)

“No rain for four years.”  The shaman, grim-faced, is bending over a plant.

“It was hard when we had no rain for two summers. We barely survived.” The tribesman standing behind him sounds worried.

The shaman turns away from the clump of thorny brush to gaze at the bleached, shimmering sky.  Already, in his bones he can feel the moisture ebbing from the land like a mother feels the milk drying up inside her.

“But good will come.” His face softens.  “We will survive.  But the white man, he won’t. He will flee. The land will be ours once again.”

~~~

Friday Fictioneers flash fiction for the photo prompt - 

Cricket practice

(100-word flash fiction)

The boys were dumbfounded. They had arrived at their cricket ground as usual with rickety bats and an old tennis ball and Charlie was halfway through the tunnel under the wire fence when they saw the ‘structure’. They gazed at it in awe and fright.

“How could anyone have erected something so big in one night?” Pete whispered.

“Tall crane,” Tony, the know-all.

Meanwhile, AK782164 was furious. Not only had all systems failed, he had to scramble through the whole night in pitch dark, to reach the only window to find that the ruddy spaceship had landed on its side.

~~~

My story for the Friday Fictioneers photo prompt below -

2AM - haiga

(click on photo for larger view)

For the dVerse prompt ‘2AM’ 

How can you be bored with being?

Thoroughly thought-provoking .....

"Finally, the game of life as Western man has been 'playing' it for the past century needs less emphasis on practicality, results, progress, and aggression. This is why I am discussing vision, and keeping off the subject of justifying the vision in terms of its practical applications and consequences. Whatever may be true for the Chinese and the Hindus, it is timely for us to recognize that the future is an ever-retreating mirage, and to switch our immense energy and technical skill to contemplation instead of action. However much we may now disagree with Aristotle's logic and his metaphors, he must still be respected for reminding us that the goal of action is always contemplation—knowing and being rather than seeking and becoming.

As it is, we are merely bolting our lives—gulping down undigested experiences as fast as we can stuff them in—because awareness of our own existence is so superficial and so narrow that nothing seems to us more boring than simple being. If I ask you what you did, saw, heard, smelled, touched, and tasted yesterday, I am likely to get nothing more than the thin, sketchy outline of the few things that you noticed, and of those only what you thought worth remembering. Is it surprising that an existence so experienced seems so empty and bare that its hunger for an infinite future is insatiable? But suppose you could answer, 'It would take me forever to tell you, and I am much too interested in what's happening now.' How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such a fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself as anything less than a god? And, when you consider that this incalculably subtle organism is inseparable from the still more marvelous patterns of its environment—from the minutest electrical designs to the whole company of the galaxies — how is it conceivable that this incarnation of all eternity can be bored with being?" 

~ Alan Watts.
Excerpt from the book - The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

After the rain

(Photo taken at : Martinborough, NZ)

Phenomenal woman

Phenomenal poem!

PHENOMENAL WOMAN

By MAYA ANGELOU

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size

But when I start to tell them,

They think I'm telling lies.

I say,

It's in the reach of my arms

The span of my hips,

The stride of my step,

The curl of my lips.

I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

I walk into a room

Just as cool as you please,

And to a man,

The fellows stand or

Fall down on their knees.

Then they swarm around me,

A hive of honey bees.

I say,

It's the fire in my eyes,

And the flash of my teeth,

The swing in my waist,

And the joy in my feet.

I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

Men themselves have wondered

What they see in me.

They try so much

But they can't touch

My inner mystery.

When I try to show them

They say they still can't see.

I say,

It's in the arch of my back,

The sun of my smile,

The ride of my breasts,

The grace of my style.

I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

Now you understand

Just why my head's not bowed.

I don't shout or jump about

Or have to talk real loud.

When you see me passing

It ought to make you proud.

I say,

It's in the click of my heels,

The bend of my hair,

the palm of my hand,

The need of my care,

'Cause I'm a woman

Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,

That's me.

Maya Angelou

Rainwalk - tanka

rain falls like feathers

sashaying down the catwalk

of sky air

I suspect the trees clapped

and the rain god was made proud

~~~

All night rain falls

in the hills

an owl calls out for a mate

 all night rain falls

~~~

sleep sprites unreel

dream movies on closed eyelids

 all night rain falls

~~~

I wake from this dream

into a dream more real

 all night rain falls

the moon is an orange

the sound of rain a warning

~~~

Mountain mystique - haiga

...

time stashes secrets

into the folds of mountains
only the wind knows

(photo : Rimutaka mountains, Upper Hutt)
Click on photo to view larger version

~~~

Creation - haiga

all of creation

smiles from a single bloom

joyous as a child

There is Buddha

in the still space

between each thought

the Buddha waits

~~~

For Carpe Diem's Santoka Taneda's 'There is Buddha' prompt

in the ceaseless sound
of the water
there is Buddha

© Santoka Taneda

Subsumption

This being a woman

This being a woman
is a holding back

words caught in the throat
pebbles, rocks, boulders,
but isn't it the stones
that make the river sing?


This being a woman
is a flowing around

a liquid grace,
a sinuous tenacity,
what obstacle has ever
stopped a river in flow?


This being a woman
is a relearning

no matter how much
the world breaks you,
were you not always
unbreakable and whole?


This being a woman
is a discovering

amidst a world that
denies you your dignity,
finding a world inner,
pure, precious, powerful.


This being a woman
is always about love

you may love one
or may love many,
but above all
you must love your self

~~~

The Heart of a Woman

by Georgia Douglas Johnson

 

The heart of a woman goes forth with the dawn,

As a lone bird, soft winging, so restlessly on,

Afar o'er life's turrets and vales does it roam

In the wake of those echoes the heart calls home.

The heart of a woman falls back with the night,

And enters some alien cage in its plight,

And tries to forget it has dreamed of the stars

While it breaks, breaks, breaks on the sheltering bars.

 

 

~~~

 

Awesome!

 

 

The nut cracker - haiku

sparrows cheep 

cheep cheep me awake

into a dreamworld

of mirages
I, an unwilling
participant

carrying

a body so burdensome

so burdensome

the desiring mind

transfixed by illusions

of its own making

yet, something waits

to be found, for the shell

to be cracked open

the other me

beckons with a nut-cracker

called silence

~~~

The wealthiest place in the world

The video says it all -

Befriending silence - tanka

your endless talk

on festers of loneliness

are but band-aids

come, let us befriend silence

the fullness of nothingness

~~~

Walk in the forest - tanka

 

walk in the forest

tan columns and green walls

cathedral of calm

from among the rustling trees

I pick seeds of silence

~~~